My Etsy shop is sooo quiet now

[WeRD]

I opened my Etsy shop a few years ago and was blown away by the success of it. I managed to leave my 9-5 and live off of it alone. It was great, so flexible and I was making enough money not to need anything else, I couldn’t believe it. Fast forward a few years and the sales have all but dried up. I don’t know if it’s mainly that people just don’t have the extra cash anymore to spend on ‘nice things’. I’ve had to put my prices up a bit due to my increasing costs or it’s hardly worthwhile selling my items. I don’t know what to do 😞 I have a fairly decent social media following but it doesn’t seem to convert to sales anymore. I pay for ads sometimes but it’s not worth it for the number of orders I get in return. Do I need to shut up shop and go back to a ‘proper job’? How else could I save it now? 😢

What sort of product do you sell?
Have you looked at other sellers of your product to compare quality/ price?
Can you diversify into other products? Something 'up and coming'?

lies on the floor and kicks feet in a toddler tantrum at temu ruining my life plans

I don’t want to say but I was one of the top ones in that category, I think I still am, but others are doing it cheaper on there. I think I’m going to have to branch out into a few other things in the hope of saving it

It’s being flooded with drop shipping or alibaba tat which won’t help, was watching a video on it earlier today in fact and the entire first page plus some Etsy recommends when you searched for earrings was all from one company just selling earrings from alibaba at an insane markup and pretending they’re handmade

To be honest I did used to do this allll the time but now so many people are popping up (possibly with temu-based versions) and they are no doubt cheaper, but obviously nowhere near the quality of mine

another one here that avoids it most of the time due to the cheap crap you can buy on eBay cheaper.

About the only thing I buy from there now is cards or cheap gothy style earrings for my daughter.

Via a local seller I have discovered folksy and have bought a few bits from there - seems to be proper handmade stuff on it.

Etsy is lovely but it is amd has always been expensive. I've order my Sons bedroom ceiling shade and it's excellent quality still looks brand new. I've ordered wall art that was a reasonable price, picture for my kitchen and a personalised cup... never used it so don't know how it lasted.

Yes OP I would look for another job. Esty isn't a shop where you would constantly but things each month.

Myself and DH have 3 shops which we opened in 2017 and like you, have had great success. We do also have our own websites and sell on Amazon too but Etsy income exceeds all the others by far.

We've also had a drop in revenue and orders across all shops since mid 2023. There's just so much more competition now.

We tried lots of different things but find what works best is a small ad budget (we budget €12 per day per shop) and having a constant sale on. We mark prices up and then just use a sale to drop them back down to what we would normally charge. We found that no sale means far less orders even if the price is essentially the same.
The other thing that helps is adding new listings regularly if possible.

It's definitely harder than it used to be I wouldn't give up on it just yet.

I used to use Etsy reasonably regularly - if I wanted something a bit unusual or handmade it would be one of the first places I looked

Now there's a lot of cheap crap on there and it doesn't have the same premium/quirky feel. It used to be a shop front for small makers but I'm not sure what it is now.

Agree the COL won't be helping.

What about not on the high street? They seem to have a better filter for quality.

Thank you for this. One thing I really never do is have a sale as I just can’t afford to but it might be an idea to do that as a last ditch attempt! I would most likely leave it running in the background if I did get another job but it’s just sad when I thought I was set up for another few years yet with it! I will maybe try and join a few different sites too to broaden my audience a bit.. it’s just the work involved in doing that 🤯 but needs must at this point!

You need to diversify where you sell, not rely on one platform if it's slowing down.

Do you sell via Facebook links, TikTok links etc on your social media?

Ebay, Not On The High Street, selling wholesale into other businesses? Markets and fairs done in person, festivals...

What products do you sell? Can it be scaled up?

I know you don't want to be specific, but is it hand made jewellery, bespoke greetings cards, hand made clothes, recycled clothing etc. Would help us to advise on alternative selling platforms.

having a constant sale on. We mark prices up and then just use a sale to drop them back down to what we would normally charge

This isn’t legal

I think I’m going to join not on the high street too! It’s going to take me weeks of work to set up all these places but hopefully will get more sales through it

I've stopped using Etsy because it's changed. It used to be individual sellers with fairly unique/unusual/personal/handmade items. But now there are so many larger/wholesale sellers on there. It's lost its edge. Now if perhaps search for "xyz item" I'm faced with 1000s of search results with lots of duplicates that I haven't got the patience to scroll through.
Also, the last two orders I placed through Etsy, both sellers cancelled my order, and sent a message asking me to re-order direct from their own website at a discount price, because their discount price would still make them more money than Etsy with its fees.
So I don't know what the solution is for you sellers, but I'm sure Etsy has had its day.

Gone the same way as eBay. Used to be a site for "normal_ people to sell their stuff, now it's just bigger businesses and companies using it as platform to sell their massive market stuff.

In the process of setting up on tiktok shop just now! No idea how I’m going to manage about 5 sites at once but I’m just going to have to 😅

I can’t even really say roughly without saying it. It can’t be scaled up, the only thing I can do is start to offer more products in a similar category, but they wouldn’t be handmade

Have you tried Market Place? Selling on Instagram OP?

I stopped using Etsy after they wouldn't let women who believe in biological sex use their site to sell but allowed misogynistic sellers to stay put.
I haven't used them in about a year or so based on this but I used to use it quite a bit.
Also as other posters have said I'm being more careful with my purchases these days and only buying things I need or will add value longer term.

Another Etsy seller here, although I've been going since 2011. Things are quiet now, they've been in a steady decline for over two years. I've had to let staff go and am just about holding onto a job for myself. The only way I've been able to do that is experience and continuing to mix things up. It's important to be putting new products on Etsy regularly, like any website.
It sounds like you set up around Covid times. You can't judge any normal trading period on that. I'm about on a par with where I was in 2018/19. So many people saw huge sales during this time, packed in their day jobs and thought they had hit the big time. Now they're all trudging back off to a regular day job.
It is getting harder and harder to make money selling online and I'm debating about giving it up. It's over twelve years of my life though, I've given it my blood, sweat and plenty of tears. It seems such a waste to throw away all of my hard work. I've not quite decided yet. I can't muddle through for much longer though.

Ohh did they! 😂 I think the fees are around 15% and on top of that I have to renew listings each time as well which has another 20p or something.

Im glad I posted on here as people have had some really good suggestions so I think I just need to go back to the drawing board a bit and figure out where to go next, there seems to be loads of options

To be honest I did used to do this allll the time but now so many people are popping up (possibly with temu-based versions) and they are no doubt cheaper, but obviously nowhere near the quality of mine

You say obviously nowhere near the quality, but is it obvious? What are you doing to convey the quality? What are you doing to stand out amongst the "so many ...popping up".

Bear is mind people mentally filter on the images and won't necessarily read text, how can people tell. I don't know about Etsy's rules, but could you include e.g. a Union Jack flag and made in UK icon into your primary images?

Better / different marketing

More consistent marketing

New, better versions of your products

Different products

Brand refresh

Content on a website, Pinterest links, email list

Tik tok shop
Shopify

Put your eggs in more baskets, definitely.

A lot of my Etsy sales come from instagram but even though it has huge fees I like everything to be on there as I think I’d lose track with all the messages I already get, without actually taking orders via message. Would save me a fortune in fees though!

This is so helpful… this might be the nicest MN people have ever been on one post 🤣

One thing I'd love to see as a sometime Etsy customer, is some kind of guarantee as to how long things will take to come. It can take months or just a week so although I like the look of stuff I'm hesitant to buy because the things arrive after I need them.